NDP Convention - Day 2 Notes

If yesterday's speeches were tilted slightly toward the side of top-down politics, the training sessions today were even more oriented toward traditional conceptions of politics. There was plenty of talk about networking, fund-raising (including an online fund-raising seminar which focused solely on e-mail without mentioning social networking except as a means of gathering recipients), and pulling the vote, but not much to suggest the party had taken up what seem to me to be the most valuable lessons and ideas from recent political history.

But fortunately, the entire convention was treated to an ideal reminder of how the Obama campaign expanded the perceived possibilities in politics through Marshall Ganz' speech this afternoon. Billed for his role in Obama's "ground game", Ganz didn't concern himself with identifying the parts of the campaign which would be common to any party.

Instead, he called much-needed attention to the need to build a true constituency of supporters motivated to work together for their common values and goals - contrasting that with a marketing-based style of politics which appeals only to individual self-interest. And that's a message which should fit ideally into the NDP's efforts - particularly after a campaign where it ran by all accounts the best traditional campaign on paper, but achieved only modest gains as a result.

Betsy Myers has just taken the stage, and there's much more activity to come tomorrow (along with the Tweet-up tonight). But hopefully it's Ganz' message that will be remembered the most from #HFX09 - ideally leading to a significantly changed focus by the next time the party gets to work on training on a national scale.